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Black and White

"Black and White"

Living in a white rose, I had seen the blue sky and golden beams shining over me. I sat in a room surrounded by glassy white petals. Every color but black through the transparency had showed off. Wow! what a wonderful world my soul and body had been wrapped in. There was nothing but brightness, softness and coolness. After seeing a dream, my eyes were acquainted by grey walls around me that mixed up black and white. What a real world I live in!

Re: Black and White

Originally Posted by taghavi

"Black and White"

Living in a white rose, I had seen the blue/ azure [a literary Persian word] sky and the golden beams/ rays shining over/ on me. I sat in a room surrounded by glassy white petals. Every color but black through the transparency had showed off.

showed off: usually means to attract attention by being ostentatious. You could say:Every color had reflected/ glowed/ shone with splendor.

Wow! what a wonderful world my soul and body had been wrapped in. There was nothing but brightness, softness and coolness. The dream being over, my eyes (were)opened to find the same grey walls around me that are/were a mixture of black and white. What a (torturously) real world I live in!

To see a dream is a word-by-word reconstruction of the compound verb that you know.In English,"to dream (of/ that)" is acceptable. The compound verbs can be very misleading:

Re: Black and White

Hello, Chester
How can you post multi-quotes more often? I don't know how to write in front of your questions in the blue frame once more. I tried "post reply", "quote", and" ,," but they wouldn't worke out.

Re: Black and White

Originally Posted by taghavi

Hello, Chester
How can you post multi-quotes more often? I don't know how to write in front of your questions in the blue frame once more. I tried "post reply", "quote", and" ,," but they wouldn't worke out.

to make/deliver/give a speech
to make an utterance
to speak
to address

Thank you. They are all right and good. Particularly, those for the third expression that seems to be more challenging. As it’s crystal clear, most of the time, there’s no one-to-one equivalent, and if you insist on reconstructing the sentences without adapting them, the rules of the second language will be violated.

The fact that is each word needs its own context.

Yes, a literal translation will destroy our job, but sometimes we run into the calque or loan translations that could be correct, like this one;

Every nights in my dreams I see you, I feel you! (Celendion)
Har shab tu royam to ru mibinam.

I see. I knew perfectly that you would come up with such an example, but there’s big difference: the idiomatic English expression is to have a dream (= khaab didan.)However, the line says “I see you in my dreams”.

This is a different structure. In the same way, she sings: “I feel you [in my dream]”. So we can see, feel, or just do anything in the surreal state of dreaming.

As a result, “see” is just something the person does, and it’s not an idiom.